


Dénouement Redux

by Helholden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ASOS Spoilers, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blackwater AU, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, POV Male Character, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:24:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a remix of Dénouement. Same story as before. This time, it’s from Sandor’s POV. Sansa leaves with Sandor Clegane during the Battle of Blackwater, and everything that follows after. Follows an alternate ‘A Storm of Swords’ plot. Presented in three parts, spanning over the course of a few years. Blackwater AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Road to Winterfell

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dénouement](https://archiveofourown.org/works/761103) by [Helholden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden). 



> While reading some of the comments on the original, some of you were really interested in seeing Sandor’s thoughts during this story. Well, guess what? Comments get you cookies, and I wrote more for you lovely ladies. Enjoy! <3

_i._

 

He gathered up his blanket and rolled it into a bundle, stepping around the tree with his boots crunching against the dry leaves of the forest floor when she woke up at last. The girl slept late today. Later than usual. Sandor wondered if she was exhausted from the ride or the battle, and he eyed her briefly. She looked terrified upon waking, and he wondered if it had been a bad dream or some such nonsense. Ah, but he knew all about bad dreams.

 

Sandor collected the rest of the campsite gear in preparation to leave. The whole time she just sat there on the ground, watching him. It unnerved him. Sansa was always watching him. Always staring at him. Back in King’s Landing, she couldn’t wait to look away from him most of the time. Out here, her eyes followed him everywhere. _Damn girl_ , Sandor thought, the ruined corner of his mouth twitching.

 

When he was done, she was still sitting on the ground. Sandor’s mouth drew into a thin line, and he held out his hand to her. “Come, girl,” he said. Sansa looked at his hand first, thinking, before she took it. He helped her to her feet, and then he grabbed her blanket and rolled it up before he fastened it onto the other side of Stranger.

 

Sandor lifted her onto his horse, mindful of keeping his hands only on her waist. Sansa was still just a girl, though she was so long of limb it was sometimes hard to tell. Her face was young but mature, her body halfway towards womanhood. _She’s only a child_ , Sandor thought, disgusted with himself every time his thoughts drifted in that direction. He had to remind himself of that too often. Whenever he forgot, he looked her in the eyes. The innocence was in her eyes.

 

Not only that, but she was some highborn’s get. Let him touch her wrong and her family hear of it from her lips, they’d shear his balls off for winter stew. He meant to get her back to family, and he meant to do it without giving them a reason to execute him.

 

They kept off the road because it wasn’t safe, and as they passed through the trees at a steady pace, Sandor felt her leaning back against him. Her head began to tilt. She must have been falling into a nap, so he paid no mind to it. _Let her sleep_ , he thought. It saved him from any tedious chattering.

 

Sansa was quiet most of the time because he was quiet, but he could tell she didn’t like it. The girl wanted to talk, and he had seen her open her mouth a dozen times only to close it again without saying a word. Sansa was a bird made for chirruping, that much was clear. Out here in the wild, though, she might have been afraid to test his patience. She kept silence more often than not, and Sandor was glad for it, whatever her reasons.

 

“Can I bathe?” Sansa asked one day, when they stopped by a stream in the woods to gather some water for themselves and for his horse.

 

Sandor was taken by surprise. What kind of question was that? Her words invoked an image in his head of her taking a bath naked in the stream, and he grew angry with himself. Sandor cut a dark look at her. “Why?” he ground out.

 

“I’m dirty,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world and why couldn’t he _see_ that.

 

“Good,” he snapped, turning away from her. “You’ll look more like a peasant.”

 

He got up quickly from where he knelt by the stream, returning to Stranger with the empty wineskins he filled with water. Sandor opened one of the bags and put them inside it. When he turned around to beckon Sansa back to the horse, she was still kneeling by the stream and tying a ribbon around her hair. Sandor crossed his arms and watched in silence as she leaned forward and peeked at her reflection. Sansa made a funny noise in the back of her throat, and he held back the urge to laugh at her.

 

She reached up to touch a spot of dirt on her face with her fingers, and Sandor shook his head. Even covered in dirt, she was a sight for sore eyes. The poor girl didn’t even know it. Sansa bemoaned a torn and dirty dress, soil streaks on her face, and tangled hair. As if any of it mattered. The girl was born and bred nearly a princess. He could dump a bucket of muck and grime on her to try and hide her, and she’d still be a beauty.

 

Eventually, she rose from the stream and came back to Stranger. He helped her mount, and then he sat in front of her this time. There was a clearing up ahead, and he wanted nothing in his way. He would have better control over the reins with her behind him, so they continued on until the trees thinned out and gave way to an open field.

 

Sandor was wary, and rightly so. They were still in Lannister territory, and he wasn’t about to get caught this soon out of the keep. His eyes scanned the distance for anything they ought to be aware of, but he saw nothing yet. With his command, Stranger trotted out from the eaves of the trees and into the sun for the first time since they left King’s Landing.

 

He noticed it too late. Four figures were ahead in the golden grass. Thankfully, they were walking. No horses. _Good_ , Sandor thought. He had the upper hand there. Quickly, Sandor pulled his cowl over his head. It hung low to cover his face. One of the men called out to him, and Sandor halted his horse. He was going to have to answer them, but he couldn’t sound like a soldier.

 

“Aye, good morrow,” Sandor said loud enough for them to hear. He felt Sansa’s arms tighten around his middle all of a sudden. _Be quiet, little bird_ , he thought, hoping she remembered his warning for her not to speak to anybody and keep mute. One word out of her mouth, and they would know in a heartbeat she wasn’t a peasant. She spoke too damn proper for that.

 

The men drew nearer until they were all standing before his horse. They were soldiers. Sandor’s jaw tightened. He knew without another word this wasn’t going to end pretty.

 

“Where are you headed?” one of them asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

 

“To the farm, ser,” Sandor answered, bowing his head.

 

The next question came from a different man. He walked around Stranger, leering at Sansa. “Who’s that girl on your back?”

 

Sandor’s hands clenched the reins. His jaw was tight. “She’s my daughter, ser.”

 

“Oh, she’s a pretty one . . . ”

 

“Here’s what we’ll do,” the first one said, and the soldiers drew closer one by one. “We’ll let you be on your way once you let us have a go at her.” The soldier pulled a coin out of his pocket and flicked it at Sandor. It hit Sandor in the arm, and he let it fall to the ground untouched. Slowly, he raised his eyes back to the man. Sansa’s arms were like iron around Sandor’s chest. He knew she was terrified.

 

“No,” Sandor said, his voice scraping like steel over stone.

 

“Come now,” one of them said with a laugh. “That’s more money than you’ll see in a year. Give us the girl. We’ll return her once we’ve had a round with her.” The others were laughing along with him.

 

“I said no,” Sandor repeated darkly.

 

“Don’t know how to respect your betters,” one of them said, and the man drew his sword. It was a big mistake.

 

Sandor leapt off of Stranger and drew his own sword from beneath his cloak. He slapped Stranger and sent the horse running off at a dash with Sansa on its back. They were more squires than soldiers, and they barely put up a fight against his blade. He killed them all without a single wound taken. It was a good thing because Stranger didn’t get too far away. Sandor whistled twice to call him back. Faithfully, Stranger returned with Sansa still on top of him. Sandor cleaned the blood off his sword and noticed the look on her face.

 

“The blood’s not mine,” he said, reading her thoughts. “We’d better get far from here before more come.” He hoisted himself onto Stranger with her in front this time, and they rode out of the field as quickly as possible.

 

That night they made camp in a deserted barn. Or, at least, Sandor hoped it was deserted. It was colder than most nights, even he could feel it, but he refused to light a fire when she asked for one. It would only draw unwanted attention. It wasn’t worth the risk.

 

“I’m cold,” Sansa told him after some time of silence.

 

He looked up at her from where he sharpened his sword. Sandor felt a pang of pity, but she would live. A little cold wouldn’t kill her. “Go to sleep, girl.”

 

“I can’t,” she said softly.

 

 _Damn her_ , he thought, his pity becoming anger. He was not going soft on her now. Sandor threw his blanket at her. “There,” he snapped. “Are you happy?”

 

Sansa looked hurt, but she wrapped herself in both blankets and lied down, and he didn’t hear another word out of her. Once he figured she was finally asleep, Sandor lied down on the straw. It was the only soft place in the barn, what with her taking his damn blanket. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep. He had slept in worse places than this before.

 

As he stirred awake in the early morning, he was warm and comfortable. He felt the thick blankets over him, but didn’t think about it, and even more pleasant was the soft, warm body of a woman in his arms, pressed flush against his body. She even smelled divine. Sandor wondered suddenly if he was dreaming or if he had somehow stumbled into a whorehouse overnight until he opened his eyes and saw Sansa Stark in his arms.

 

Sandor froze completely. For the longest time, he did not move. What was she doing in his arms under a blanket with him? How’d he get under her blanket? Did something happen he couldn’t remember? His mind raced with possibilities, but Sansa was fully clothed and so was he, so nothing happened—but _why_ was she under a blanket with him?

 

And then she stirred and rubbed her head against his chest like some purring kitten and sighed, her fingers curling against his jerkin, and every thought of panic fled Sandor’s mind. She was just a girl, freezing in the middle of the night, and she had come to him for warmth, he guessed, and comfort. As odd as the thought was, Sandor figured he could accept it. He loosened up, and his arm fell lax over her side to rest there properly. His hand held her back, though not ungentle. Sandor sighed with resignation.

 

“Little bird,” he murmured, his chin resting atop her hair, and Sansa’s arm slid over him like she was stretching from sleep. He tensed up briefly again, but then she lifted her head, blinking her eyes open as she woke up. She looked at him hazily, her eyes coming into focus. He expected shock or horror once she saw his face, but there was a small smile on her lips instead.

 

“Good morning,” Sansa said, looking up at him, and Sandor didn’t know what to make of it. It was eerie.

 

“We should get up,” he said, but he waited on her to move first.

 

Sansa nodded, and then she ducked her head underneath his chin to yawn. Sandor watched as she pushed herself up and brushed the straw off of her shoddy gown, and then he got up as well. He gathered their things quickly and prepared the horse. They ate some bread, washed it down with water, and then they resumed their journey.

 

As they rode Stranger at a normal pace through the woodlands, Sandor felt something gently pulling at his cloak. He ignored it for a while until there was a sharp tug, and he knew it was Sansa messing with something she ought to just leave alone.

 

“Stop that,” he barked, and she withdrew her hand immediately. There, that was better. Sandor was surprised she didn’t apologize for it. _Lady Sansa, forgetting her courtesies_ , he thought with amusement. He never thought he would see the day.

 

“How long will it take?” she finally asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

 

“Long enough. A month, maybe two. That is, if we don’t encounter trouble on the way.”

 

Sansa’s voice wavered. “What kind of trouble?”

 

“Thieves, bandits, rapists, and murderers,” he told her, finding no reason to lie to her or sugarcoat it. “The world’s full of them all. Take your pick.”

 

“Oh,” Sansa said, her voice small. “You won’t let them hurt me, will you?” she asked, clutching onto his cloak again. He could feel the tug of her fingers, hear the vulnerability in her voice.

 

Sandor sat up straighter on his horse. “No, little bird. I won’t let anyone hurt you. The man who tries is a dead man,” he said, and he meant it. Sansa seemed satisfied with his answer, and he felt her lay her head against his back as she wrapped her arms around his middle. Despite the closeness, he didn’t complain.

 

Come nightfall, they made a quiet camp with no fire in a dense copse of trees. A large dry rot log lay across the forest floor, and Sandor leaned against it. He noticed out of the corner of his eye as Sansa crept up to him and sat beside him. Turning his head, he gave her that look again. He didn’t know what to make of her new behavior towards him. It was like she _wanted_ to be around him or near him. Sandor scowled, but Sansa wasn’t even looking at his face anymore. Her eyes roamed over his body, and suddenly, Sandor was uncomfortable. Why was she looking at him like that?

 

Sansa’s eyes stopped on his chest. Her lips parted slightly, and then she reached out her hand to touch him. Sandor reacted quickly. He blocked her hand by grabbing her wrist and pushed her arm away, letting go just as fast. _What game is she playing at?_ he thought, his face twisting into a surly ruin.

 

“Keep your distance, girl,” he warned.

 

Sansa looked hurt. “I can fix it,” she whined. “I know how.”

 

Sandor looked down at his chest, noticing the tear in his jerkin for the first time. His brow furrowed in confusion, but it didn’t last long. Her intentions might have been innocent enough, but he had to make an impression on her if he didn’t want her trying to touch him like that. Sansa had to learn there were lines. Lines she wasn’t allowed to cross anymore than him.

 

“You’ll fix more than just a jerkin if you don’t keep your hands to yourself,” he snapped, and then he turned away from her to make his bed on the forest floor. Sandor didn’t hear another word out of her, and Sansa didn’t try to sidle up to him that night either. It was for the best. She was getting too close. He put down his guard for one damn morning, and she barreled right through the open gate as if she was welcome to stay.

 

During the first half of the night, Sandor slept fitfully. Morning rolled around soon enough, and a long deprived sensation woke him up from his slumber with little shocks of pleasure coursing through his lower body. He was hard, which happened some mornings with or without dreams, but the woman in his arms wiggled against him, and he grunted low as he pulled her body close with his arm.

 

When his eyes drifted open, he saw the auburn hair and forest floor stretching before them and realized with sudden alarm just who was wiggling against him. Sandor yanked his arm back, swearing loudly, and wrenched away from her. Sansa flinched at his outburst where she lay, and then she slowly turned over to look up at him, big blue eyes wide with fear.

 

Her hair was tousled, and the little bit of dirt on her face didn’t mar her beauty. Her mouth hung open slightly as she breathed through her lips and stared at him, and Sandor found himself fighting off the same thoughts again. _She’s only a child_ , he told himself. _She doesn’t know what she’s doing_. Sandor looked her in the eyes, remembering his warning to himself. The innocence, it was always in her eyes. He just had to look for it.

 

Her expression melted to confusion, and Sansa’s blue eyes reflected none of his darker thoughts. Satisfied, he gritted his teeth together painfully and pointed his finger at her. “I told you to keep your damn distance,” he told her, an edge to his voice.

 

“But I was cold,” she whispered, her eyes glistening.

 

Sandor took a deep breath, and got up. He had to walk it off, and so he paced the campsite and then he busied himself with packing up the horse again. The sooner they were back on the road, the better. She could damn well ride behind him instead of in front. He didn’t want to take it out on her, but he was dangerously close to doing just that if he didn’t ignore her for a little while.

 

He slung a bag over Stranger’s back when Sansa scrambled to her feet. Sandor saw it out of the corner of his eye, but he never looked at her.

 

“I won’t do it again, I promise,” she said all of a sudden, her unsteady voice coming from somewhere over his shoulder. _Won’t do what, little bird?_ he thought, but he didn’t say it out loud, so she didn’t answer. Sansa walked right up to him, but she kept her distance as he said, and yet he ignored her the whole time he prepared the horse. He walked this way and that, never looking at her. Sandor couldn’t look at her. Not right now, not until he was calm again. Not until he wasn’t pissed at himself for being attracted to her.

 

A little bird, that’s all she was.

 

“I promise I won’t do it again,” Sansa said, louder than before. He could hear the panic. “I’ll do whatever you say. Please, _please_ , just don’t leave me.”

 

He froze. Sandor slowly turned around, his sharp grey eyes staring back at her. “Is that what you think?” he asked. What kind of monster did she think he was, that he would rescue her only to drop her here for the carrion crows? What would be the point of it all? Why take her anywhere at all? “You think I’d leave you here? After all this trouble?”

 

Sansa cast her eyes to the ground. “Why else would you be so mad?”

 

She didn’t get it. Seven hells, it never even crossed her mind. Sandor couldn’t help it.

 

He laughed. A loud, barking laugh.

 

“Get on the horse, girl,” he said, gesturing for her to come to Stranger. “We don’t have all day.” Sansa rushed to him like he might change his mind at any moment, and she scrambled onto Stranger with his help. He grabbed her blanket, rolled it, and tied it onto Stranger’s side. Once he mounted the horse, they rode off again with her at his back, holding on as they sped through the trees. They stopped briefly to break their fast by a small stream, and continued on again after a moment’s rest.

 

Sansa started to keep quiet for the most part, and she slept away from him at night. It was a welcome change for Sandor, but it started to take a toll on her. The girl looked like she wasn’t sleeping properly. The whites of her eyes grew bloodshot, and dark circles appeared underneath them on her skin. Sansa talked less, too. After so many days of nothing more than ‘good morning,’ ‘goodnight,’ ‘yes,’ and ‘no’ said between them, Sandor finally had to say something about it one evening as they ate a meager supper.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “Haven’t said a word in days.”

 

“I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

 

The little bird was lying, and he could sense it.

 

“You’re lying, girl,” he warned her. She knew how he felt about lying.

 

“I haven’t been sleeping,” she blurted out, admitting it all. “It’s so cold and the blanket isn’t enough to keep warm. You won’t let me near you. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, and you won’t tell me. I’m afraid I’m going to wake up one morning and you won’t be there.” There were tears in her eyes when she was finished. He watched as she quickly wiped them away with the back of her hand, and Sansa took a deep breath as if it might calm her. Her hands shook in her lap.

 

 _Damn her_ , Sandor thought. _Seven hells, damn her_. Why did she have to be born so beautiful? Why did he have to notice? Why did he have to want her and fight off every urge to look at her wrong or . . . no, he never much thought about touching her. What few times he had, Sansa hadn’t been in sight and he had sated his urge with a red-headed whore, but that had only made it worse. It had made him think about it more, and then he had to stop with it altogether before it became obvious he had a penchant for red hair.

 

King’s Landing had been full of spiders, and she had been Joffrey’s betrothed while he had been Joffrey’s dog. What a story that would have been in the king’s ear, even if Joffrey didn’t want her. It wouldn’t have made the story any less worse.

 

None of it was even her fault, though. It was his damn fault, all of it. Sansa was just an innocent girl, and she thought she had upset him or displeased him somehow. She was too damn naive to realize why he acted the way he did, why he told her to keep her distance, and why he kept his. He couldn’t trust himself with her, not like that. Making sure she had food to eat was one thing. Getting her to her family was one thing. Taking care of her basic needs until they got to Winterfell was one thing.

 

Holding her in the night because she was cold, that was something else altogether.

 

Sandor realized he had been quiet for a long time. He hadn’t answered her. He didn’t know what to say, so he finished his meal in silence and so did she. When he rose to prepare his bed on the grass, Sandor stopped to think. Maybe it wasn’t such a hard thing to do, giving her some comfort in the night. It wasn’t like he would rape the girl. He had no intentions of forcing anything on her she didn’t want. He wasn’t his brother. For fuck’s sake, he wasn’t his brother.

 

The worst that could happen was another morning with her wiggling her damn bottom on him, and he pulled away from that quick enough.

 

“Sansa,” he called out. Sandor had made his decision.

 

She paused in the middle of spreading out her blanket and bunching up a cloak for a pillow, turning very slowly to look at him. Her mouth made a little ‘o’ with her lips, and her eyes went wide. Sansa stared at him like she had never seen him before in her life. Sandor glowered at her, the corner of his mouth twitching. Like he never called her by her name before, gods. “Don’t look at me like that,” he barked. “Come here.” Sansa took a step forward. “Bring your blanket and cloak,” he added before she forgot them. Quickly, she turned around and scooped them up in her arms before walking over to him.

 

He needed rules if they were going to do this, and she had better follow them. He lifted a finger at her face and spoke very sternly. “You can lie beside me tonight,” Sandor said slowly, “but I have rules. One. No talking. I want to sleep, not have a tea party. Two. No writhing. It keeps me awake. Three. No damn _wiggling_. In fact don’t move at all. Just be still. Understood?”

 

Sansa’s brow creased and she opened her mouth, but she clamped it shut and hastily nodded. “Yes,” she said.

 

Sandor narrowed his eyes. He wondered what she was going to say, but then she didn’t say it and he didn’t want to ask. Instead, he nodded his head.  “Good.” He turned away from her to finish, and she helped him. Once their spot was made and he took his place on the ground, Sansa quickly joined him. Instead of lying beside him like he expected, she cuddled right up to him under the blankets and put her head on his shoulder and her arm over his chest. Sandor tensed up immediately, but her eyes were already closed and she looked as though she was swift to find sleep.

 

After a long time, he allowed his arm to encircle her back and rested his hand on her shoulder. She was as still as he asked her to be, and soon enough her breathing evened out and slowed down. Sansa was asleep in his arms, and Sandor closed his eyes. He drifted off not long after her.

 

He awoke in the middle of the night to something tickling his face. Sandor stirred, opening his eyes. He was on his back. The wind blew chilly, and the sky was still black above him with a smattering of stars sprinkled above the tree tops. It must have been the wind on his face, he thought, nothing more. His mouth twitched. Damn wind, waking him up.

 

Gazing down, he saw Sansa with her face laid against his jerkin and her hand on his chest. She was bundled up so close that she was halfway on top of him. Her shoulder leaned into him, and her leg had lifted slightly onto his. The tips of her toes pressed against his, though she still wore her shoes in her sleep and he, his boots. It was too cold for otherwise.

 

His hand rubbed against her arm as she slept, and he rolled back onto his side, taking her with him and laying her back down beside him. Sandor kept his arm around her, though. She was warm, and she was soft. It was nice, just holding her as she slept, though he would never admit it out loud. Her hair smelt of grass and flowers, earthy from all of their travelling in the wild—but underneath, still womanly. Sandor closed his eyes and breathed in her scent.

 

Sansa exhaled deeply in her sleep, her fingers curling and uncurling against his jerkin. There was something peaceful to the motions of her hand, a simple gesture he had never experienced before with a woman. Again and again, her fingers curled and uncurled against his chest right above the area of his heart, and it lulled him back into a deep and dreamless sleep under a sea of stars.


	2. Through the Riverlands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a remix of Dénouement. Same story as before. This time, it’s from Sandor’s POV. Sansa leaves with Sandor Clegane during the Battle of Blackwater, and everything that follows after. Follows an alternate ‘A Storm of Swords’ plot. Presented in three parts, spanning over the course of a few years. Blackwater AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While reading some of the comments on the original, some of you were really interested in seeing Sandor’s thoughts during this story. Well, guess what? Comments get you cookies, and I wrote more for you lovely ladies. Enjoy! <3

_ii._

 

The rest of the journey to Winterfell continued without much incident. Sandor suggested to Sansa that she wear a cowl over her head as well to cover her hair. Too many people were looking for her, and to have her auburn tresses flying through the wind wasn’t a smart idea. He also didn’t want anyone she knew to recognize her. Sandor had a mind to bring her straight to her family himself to prove it was he who did this. He would be lying if he wasn’t hoping for a reward. Gold, perhaps. Maybe something more. He could serve them. He wasn’t serving Lannisters anymore.

 

They passed through small villages, ravaged lands, and sometimes holdfasts of nothing but crows and corpses. Sandor kept off the road like he said was best for them, but they encountered a few small groups that thought to kill him and steal her away. _Bugger that_ , he thought. She was his. He swung his sword each time it was required of him. He killed them all. Anyone and everyone who looked at her wrong and tried something, he slew them where they stood right in front of her.

 

He thought it would scare her at first, for her to see him kill so many men, but Sansa seemed to look at him different because of it. She saw him kill in cold blood, and then he’d hand her the last ration of food or the first sip of water or give her the thickest blanket, and she would look at him with this light in her eyes he’d never seen there before. Sandor wondered what that meant. He thought it would discomfort him, but he found that he liked it, her looking at him like that.

 

Sansa started to hold him closer in the night, her arms and body growing too familiar with him. Sandor complained sometimes just for good measure. He didn’t want her thinking he liked it. He couldn’t have her getting too attached to him. It was best for both of them if she didn’t.

 

When they arrived in Winterfell, something was wrong. He could sense it. The air was too thick, the lands around too quiet. Sandor brought Stranger to a halt, staring at the castle’s outer walls. Eventually, he trotted them right up to the city gates and dismounted the courser. Sandor turned around to look at Sansa, putting his hand on her lower arm and grasping her firmly. “Wait here,” he said, “and stay on the horse. If you have to, you run. Understand?”

 

Sansa swallowed and nodded at him. Satisfied, he turned back around and approached the gate. It was open, and he went inside. Winterfell was a ruin. A crypt full of dead bodies, half decayed and half eaten by the carrion crows. The stench was so overwhelming Sandor had to cover his face. He searched for anyone living, but found no one.

 

He returned to Sansa sitting atop Stranger outside the walls. She looked confused, staring at him with that lost look in her blue eyes, and he didn’t know what to tell her. He didn’t know what to do himself. Sandor shook his head, more to himself than anything, and mounted Stranger once more. “There’s nothing here for you, girl,” he told her, feeling cruel for the words, but it was the truth. It wasn’t going to change because he wanted it to.

 

He steered his horse back in the direction they came from, fleeing the ravaged remains of Winterfell.

 

“Where is everybody? What happened?” Sansa asked him, panic in her voice as she clutched onto his cloak.

 

“They’re all dead,” he said.

 

Sansa cried for weeks. Sandor stopped complaining when she clung to him at night, and he refused to snap at her when he got angry. He walked away, or he hit a tree. He wasn’t going to take out his frustrations on a mourning girl. He could be a cruel bastard, but he wasn’t that cruel. Sandor made sure to offer her the first slice of any food, but most of the time she wouldn’t eat and he had to threaten to force-feed her to get her to swallow anything for sustenance. He wouldn’t do it for true, but she ate and that was the whole point of it.

 

Sansa still had a mother and an older brother. The King in the North, they were calling him. Sandor discovered news of their whereabouts as the two of them passed through a small village hidden in their cloaks and cowls, listening for news and rumors.

 

“I’m taking you to your mother in Riverrun,” he told her that very same evening as they ate a small supper. Sansa barely heard him, but she nodded her head slowly as she popped a berry in her mouth and chewed on it. Sandor prepared his bedroll for the night when they were finished eating, and Sansa wordlessly slipped beneath his covers without even asking or being offered this time. She wrapped one arm around his arm and the other around his chest, hugging him tightly, and began to cry. Her whole body shook with sobs, and at first he didn’t know what to do. It had never been his job to soothe a crying girl.

 

Eventually, Sandor put his free arm around her and tried to coax her with a few pats on the shoulder, but it did no good. “You have still got your mother,” he told her, hoping it helped somehow. “And your brother, Robb. Don’t cry so much, girl.” At least she had them. All of his family was dead. All the ones that mattered, anyway.

 

In the morning, they resumed their journey to Riverrun. Sandor took a slightly different route south than what he took going north. They encountered less trouble along the way this time than they did riding north for Winterfell. The Riverlands were ravaged by war and lawlessness, but they narrowly avoided most of the trouble by keeping far away from the river and the people. The journey would take longer going that way, but it was safer.

 

They narrowly avoided a few bandits, and whispers of a Brotherhood reached his ears the further they went south, but they never came across them. It was lucky for them. Each night, the clouds came and blotted out the stars and moon, laying a blanket of darkness over the land and hiding them from the prying eyes of the world beyond.

 

The clouds stayed one morning, and the weather took a nasty turn. The skies grew darker, and thunder rumbled the ground with the imminent threat of a storm. While riding down a small path, Sandor spotted a traveling army in the far distance. He halted Stranger and eyed the marching ranks through the vale of thick trees that hid him and Sansa from view. The army carried white banners emblazoned with a grey direwolf. It was the sigil of her House.

 

Sansa lifted her arm, pointing eagerly at it. “It’s my brother,” she told him, looking over her shoulder at Sandor from her place in front of him.

 

Sandor narrowed his eyes at the army ahead of them past the trees. “We’re riding direct to your brother,” he said. “Not to his men. They’ll kill me, and gods know what they’d do to you.”

 

“Robb would never—”

 

“There’s monsters on both sides, girl,” he cut in before she could finish. “Robb will kill them after. Give them a nice slow death. Be sure of that. But he can’t stop them from raping you if he’s not there, and I can’t fight a thousand men.”

 

Sansa said no more, but she looked back at the passing army through the trees. “What do we do, then?” she asked, her voice small and sad.

 

“We follow them wherever they’re going,” Sandor said, and he turned Stranger around and followed the same path as the army. After some time, they crossed paths with a peasant and a young girl riding a cloaked wagon. Sandor left Sansa on Stranger while he went to talk to the man. Sansa didn’t need to know what was going to be said, and he didn’t want her to hear it.

 

Sandor slipped the man a coin, but he spoke in a low, threatening voice. “You’re going to get off this wagon, take your girl, and get far away. It’s mine now. You see that girl over there? I killed her father and her brothers, took their gold, and now she warms my bed at night. Leave the wagon and go, and your daughter won’t warm my bed with her after I slit your throat.”

 

The fear in the man’s eyes was real. Quickly, he got down from the wagon with his daughter and untied the horse. They mounted their horse and rode off immediately, leaving the wagon for Sandor and Sansa. He returned to her and led Stranger and her over, fastening the warhorse in place. Sandor offered his hand to Sansa to help her down. They both sat on the bench of the wagon, which was a welcome change from riding on the horse all day.

 

Sansa looked back to peek under the cloth that covered the back. It was full of baskets of food, which he knew. Sansa gasped. “Can we eat some of it?” she asked.

 

Sandor fought off a smile, his nose wrinkling with the effort. “Yes, you can eat some of it, but best be on our way first,” he said.

 

The going was slower with the wagon than when it was just the two of them on Stranger’s back. The trees crept by at a slow rate, and Sandor saw Sansa’s arm reach into the back of the wagon out of the corner of his eye. Sansa grabbed a small loaf of bread and some dried meat, nibbling on them as they passed safely out of distance from the marching army.

 

“Do you have some water?” she asked, biting off another piece of meat to chew.

 

“There’s no more water for now,” Sandor told her. “Just wine. Here.” He passed her his wineskin. She sniffed it, crinkling her pretty little nose at the smell, but she drank of it all the same. Sansa coughed as it went down. Sandor laughed at her. “Drink that slow,” he advised. “It’s strong wine. Too strong for a little bird like you.”

 

Sansa drank slowly after that. Sandor hoped he didn’t get her drunk. The last thing he needed was a drunken Sansa on his hands. Gods, have mercy. He took the wineskin away from her after that thought crept into his head, but she didn’t complain. She looked a little ill.

 

 _That would be the wine_ , Sandor thought.

 

A fine sheet of rain began to fall from above. Sandor already had his hood over his head, but Sansa pulled on her hood as well to shield herself. It wasn’t long before it poured in great lashings through the sky. They were drenched within seconds. Lighting arced somewhere above their heads, but Sandor paid it no mind. Despite the storm, they continued at a slow pace until a river came into view beyond the trees, and he brought their wagon to a stop.

 

“That’s the Twins,” he said, and Sansa looked out with him towards the head of the army. It was gathered around the base of a heavily fortified castle connected by a bridge to another castle on the other side of the river.

 

“They are going north, then,” Sansa said, looking over at him. “To Winterfell, aren’t they? They will have heard what’s happened, and they are heading back.”

 

Sandor wasn’t so sure about that. It was possible, but the Freys weren’t known to allow a crossing without some gain to it themselves. “Could be,” he said. “We can pass through just the same as them. Pretend we’re bringing this food to the Lord of the Crossing. They will take it, and then we will find your brother.” He was soaked to the bone, his drenched cowl hanging low over his face, but all of his focus was on the army ahead and their movements.

 

“I can talk to Robb,” Sansa suddenly said, startling him out of the silence. “You can work for him, I’m sure of it. He’ll be very glad to have you.”

 

Sandor removed his gaze from the army to look at her. It surprised him, but he didn’t show it. It was more than just courtesy that fueled her words. They were genuine. She had grown attached to him after all, hadn’t she? His sharp eyes focused solely on her.

 

“And why would you do that, little bird?” he asked.

 

Sansa opened her mouth, but no words came out. She closed it, biting on her lower lip, and turned her gaze to look at the army. It was an excuse so she didn’t have to look at him and answer his question. He knew it. He wasn’t an idiot. Sandor waited patiently until she turned back around, and she looked surprised that he was still staring at her, waiting for an answer.

 

Sansa lowered her gaze to his lap where he held the reins. She gently laid one of her hands on top of his, and then she squeezed. “You don’t have to go,” Sansa said, her words sounding far away and her voice small. She looked up at him to meet his gaze. “You can stay.”

 

Sandor had to look away from her eyes, then. He used to be able to look into her eyes to remind himself she was just a child, but that look of innocence had waned as of late until he could no longer see it. Time had passed, and she had grown some more, and life wasn’t like it was in the songs. He glanced down at her hands, and then his eyes were back on the army. Sandor shook the reins, causing her hand to drop from his, and Stranger left the path and pulled the wagon towards the castles. “We’ll see about that,” Sandor said, but he spoke more to himself than to her.

 

They were halfway across the land with the rain lashing down on them when chaos erupted ahead. The tents erected up along the grounds were all cut down, falling upon the men within them. Swords were drawn in the distance. Arrows shot through the sky. It was going to be a bloody battle soon, and he was getting the hell out of here as soon as possible before it took him and her with it.

 

“What’s happening?” Sansa suddenly asked, the terror rising in her voice, and Sandor drew his sword, quickly cutting Stranger free and jumping down from the wagon.

 

He extended his hand to her. “Come, girl,” he ordered. “Quick!”

 

Sansa took his hand, and he yanked her down from the wagon. Sandor lifted her easily by the waist and placed her on Stranger’s back. He mounted the horse in front of her, took the reins, and wheeled the beast around. They went off in the opposite direction. The rain beat against his whole body, but there was no time to stop. It was a butcher’s block in the other direction, and Sandor had no intentions of being the next in line for the hatchet.

 

They rode for hours until it was safe to stop, and Sandor took shelter with her under a large tree with foliage thick enough to block the slackened rainfall. Stranger was exhausted and upset, and Sandor had to calm him down. Once his horse was relaxed and steady, he tied him up and knelt beside Sansa. She sat on the tree’s roots, her back to its trunk, her eyes staring down at her lap. She hadn’t said two words since they fled from the Green Fork.

 

“Girl,” he said, but she didn’t answer him. He softened his voice. “Sansa, look at me.”

 

Sansa looked up. Her eyes were sore. Red and swollen from crying. He hadn’t even known she’d been crying. “They’re dead, aren’t they?” Sansa asked him quietly. “That was Robb’s army. All dying . . . ”

 

“Might be,” Sandor said. “Might not be. We don’t know anything yet. We’ll get to a village. By the time we find one, news should be spreading.”

 

“And if they’re dead?” she asked, looking down at her lap again. Her voice was toneless as she fidgeted with her hands.

 

 _If they were dead_. It was a good question. What if they were? What was he supposed to do with an orphan? Sandor was silent at first. He wasn’t saying that bit out loud. “We’ll find more family,” Sandor said at last, “someone to bring you to.”

 

“My family is all dead,” Sansa said flatly.

 

“Look at me,” Sandor repeated, more firmly this time.

 

She obeyed the command, but her eyes stared at him unseeing. Sandor stared back at her for a short while, but her eyes were empty pools of grief. He rose to his feet and stalked off, cursing as he went. If her mother and brothers were all dead, what was he supposed to do with her? Fuck, he couldn’t return her to her family if they were all dead, and he couldn’t just _keep_ her. What the hell was he supposed to do with her?

 

Sandor picked up one of the wineskins, filled with the strongest wine he could have bought from the last village they passed through, and drank through two or three until he was sufficiently drunk enough that he didn’t have to think about it anymore. He stumbled back to his feet some time later, and got her back on the horse after their rest. They were off again after that, riding like mad until nightfall came upon them and they had to stop for sleep.

 

Sansa was unusually quiet for weeks. She didn’t cry again. Sandor discovered from another small village they passed through that her family was in fact dead, slaughtered at the Twins, mother and son, and he drank himself into a stupor that night. He wandered aimless for weeks, but Sansa never asked any questions about where they were going or what they were doing. _Nothing_ , he would have answered her, but she was too busy with her own grief to notice or even care.

 

Her silence began to unnerve him. He was more tense than usual. Drunk more often than not. Tonight, he was drunk. As he ate quietly across from her, Sansa picked up a small stone and threw it at him. It hit him square in the chest. At first, he was just shocked. _Where did that come from?_ he asked himself, but then he looked up and Sansa was staring at him with ire in her eyes—like all of this was _his_ fault. She threw the damn stone. Sandor stood up from his seat on the ground, glaring at her with cold steel in his eyes.

 

“What the bloody hell was that for?” he swore at her. Instead of answering him, Sansa bent over to pick up another rock, bigger this time, and chucked it at him too. His eyes went wide, and Sandor ducked as it flew by his head. He was so confused, but that only made him angry. Sandor’s face twisted in his rage, and he headed straight for her. Sansa stood up quickly, but she didn’t run away. Once he reached her, she suddenly slapped him across the face. Sandor grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard.

 

“What in _seven hells_ is wrong with you?” he ground out. Sansa stared at him for a moment as if she had to think about it, whatever it was, and then she chose to spit in his face instead of answer him.

 

Sandor shoved her away from him. Sansa lost her balance and fell to the ground, landing on a branch with her hip. She was hurt, and briefly he thought to help her back to her feet. Sandor felt awful for pushing her, but then his temper took over because she _spat_ on him. After everything he had done for her, she _spat_ on him like he was nothing more than a dog to her, so Sandor descended on her and grabbed her by the front of her dress and yanked her upright to face him.

 

“I’m warning you, girl,” he growled at her, and Sansa kicked him right in his leg.

 

Sandor shoved her down and pinned her to the wet ground. She struggled with him, hitting him and clawing at him, until they were a mess of limbs on the ground fighting for the upper hand. But no matter how many scratches she laid on him or how many blows he took, he never hit her back. He wasn’t going to hit her. He could do this all night if he had to, pinning her there until she gave up her useless fight.

 

Sansa struggled in his arms until she was too tired to fight anymore. Sandor just glared at her from above, holding her until she fell limp in his grasp.

 

“Are you done?” he asked quietly, looking straight in her eyes.

 

Sansa stared back at him. She bit her bottom lip, and then she began to tremble. Slowly at first, until it took over her whole body, and then she was crying beneath him for the first time in weeks. Sandor released her and stood up, scooping her in his arms. He carried her over to the blankets and laid her down, wrapping her up until she was as bundled as a baby. He didn’t lie down beside her. Instead, he sat on the ground, drank from his wineskin, and stood a watch over her. Sansa rolled over onto her side and curled into a ball, wracking her body with sobs until she feel asleep.

 

Misery did funny things to people. Sandor knew all about that. His own grief often turned into wrath, so Sandor didn’t have to ask her to know. He pulled from his wineskin and stared off into the night until he too lied down and fell asleep.

 

He was up first in the morning, having already made preparations for leaving when Sansa finally woke up. She tried to sit up, but she rolled over instead and vomited up what little she had eaten the night before. Sandor came around to put a hand on her forehead. Sansa barely even noticed him. She was burning up.

 

“You’re sick,” Sandor said, and he hoisted her up onto the horse. “Sit up,” he commanded, and she followed his orders. He then led Stranger through the forest into an open clearing. He walked the horse until they came upon the outskirts of a small farmland. Sandor saw no people, but he saw a house and he wondered if there were people in it. There was also a barn. He led them to the barn first.

 

This one was big and spacious, and it had a second story that was reachable only by ladder. Sandor carried her to the top, and he put her down near the wall. He used his hands to scrape some of the loose hay strewn across the boards into a small pile between her and the edge to hide her from view in case anyone looked up. He wanted her to wait here while he checked out the house. If there were people and they weren’t friendly, Sandor didn’t want her getting involved in it.

 

“Keep out of sight and don’t make a single noise,” he warned her, looking her straight in the face. “Stay here until I get back.”

 

Sansa said nothing, but she nodded her head as she looked hazily up at him. She closed her eyes, and Sandor brushed her hair out of her face. He pulled his hand back as soon as he realized his action, cursing himself inwardly, and quickly descended the ladder.

 

The house was empty. Sandor scoured it up and down. There were no dead bodies, and the place wasn’t burnt to the ground, so he wondered what had happened here. More importantly, he gathered what supplies he could find in their cupboards and storage. Luckily, there were some herbs, honey, and liquor. Sandor took everything he might need and a few things he just wanted, left the house, and returned to the barn.

 

He made the concoction in the barn. While he was no maester, he’d been on enough battlefields to have a basic understanding of easy to make remedies for sickness. It was strong, made for a man his size and not a girl her size, but he wouldn’t let her drink all of it. Only what she needed. When he returned to the top of the barn, he laid a wet rag on her forehead and she jolted upright in alarm. Sandor pressed a hand into her shoulder to lower her back down.

 

“Easy,” he said. “You have cried yourself sick. This’ll make it better. Drink.” He brought the wooden cup to her lips, and Sansa drank. She choked, but he urged her to drink more, and so she did. It was stronger than he thought because it knocked her out cold shortly after she finished only half the cup. Her breathing slowed down, her head rolling to the side. Sandor touched her forehead. She was burning up.

 

Sansa had to sweat out her fever, so he wrapped her up nice and tight in both blankets. She faded in and out of conscious for the few days that it took, and each day, Sandor gave her more of the medicine to drink until her fever finally broke into a cold sweat. He removed the blankets from her, and her dress was dirty, sweaty, and it stunk.

 

Sandor took a heavy swig of wine, and then he resolved himself to undress her. He was wary enough not to let his eyes linger, and thankfully, her smallclothes still covered her up. He wasn’t touching those. She could change them herself. Sandor carefully pulled a thin white undergown from her things over her head and straightened it out, laying her back down. He wiped her face and neck clean, pulling her hair out of the way.

 

As he brought the wet rag across her collarbone, Sandor realized his hand had stilled and drifted off the rag. He touched her smooth milky skin, so briefly, before pulling his hand back. Sandor clenched his fist. He took the rag away, and drank some more wine until he passed out somewhere beside her to forget about the world once more.

 

He awoke to the sound of a ladder rung squeaking in the night, and Sandor rolled over to look. Sansa wasn’t beside him anymore. When he sat up, he glanced over the edge and saw her wandering around the bottom, looking for something. _Water_ , he thought. She was checking barrels and troughs and bowls. When Sansa found nothing in the barn, she peeked her head out of the big doors into the dark fields beyond.

 

Sandor followed her. If she wanted some peace and quiet, she would get it, but he wasn’t about to let her go wandering off alone. He had to keep an eye on her if she wanted to be safe. He wanted her to be safe, family or no family. Somebody had to protect her. That somebody had to be him, so Sandor followed her until she stopped at a little stream not too far into the forest. He kept his distance, and watched in silence.

 

Sansa pulled her gown over her head and tossed it aside. She pushed her smallclothes down to her feet, bending over and giving him a full view of everything, and Sandor looked away as he slowly ran his hand over his face. It stopped on his mouth. What was he doing, watching her undress? His eyes strayed back, and Sansa was splashing water on herself, running her hands all over her body to spread it over her skin. She glistened in the moonlight, the nipples of her perfect round teats hard from the cold stream’s water. Water caught on the mound of hair between her legs, every droplet catching in the moonlight and twinkling.

 

His breeches were uncomfortably tight as his hardness grew from watching her. She was so beautiful. What was the harm? He wasn’t touching her. Sandor unlaced his breeches and released himself from the confines of his pants, closing his hand around his cock and stroking himself as he stared at Sansa’s naked body through the trees. She poured water into her mouth, and he moved his hand quicker as it poured down her chin and over her breasts, shining under the moon and stars.

 

Sandor briefly closed his eyes, imagining his cock in her mouth and those perfect round teats bouncing for him as he fucked her mouth. When he opened them again, she was bent over the stream, washing her hair in the rushing water among the rocks. His thoughts took a darker turn, her back bent, her ass plain in sight aimed up in the air, and he thought about slapping those pretty pink cheeks as he fucked her cunt from behind, her palms bracing herself on the ground as she squealed for more.

 

He came hard with a shudder that wracked his shoulders. Sandor leaned forward against the tree, his pleasure quickly turning to shame. His face burned hot from it. _She’s just a girl_ , he tried to tell himself as he tucked himself back into his breeches and laced them up, but her body wasn’t that of a girl’s anymore. She was anything but a girl. She was a woman. A woman with no family. A woman with no home. A woman with no man.

 

 _Don’t go thinking things like that_ , Sandor told himself, quickly growing angry with himself. He wiped his hand on his breeches to make sure it was clean, and then he moved silently through the trees straight towards her. Sansa had been bathing long enough. As she rung her hair dry, he clamped one hand over her shoulder and the other one over her mouth, pulling her upper body against him. His hand drowned out her scream. Sandor knew she might have done that, not knowing who he was at first.

 

“Are you stupid, girl?” he hissed into her ear, and then he let her go. He tore off his cloak and draped it over her shoulders to hide her nakedness from sight. Sansa clutched the fabric around herself, and he snatched her clothes up from the ground. Sandor grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, dragging her back to the barn with him.

 

“I was only thirsty,” Sansa said as he pulled her along. “And I wanted a bath.”

 

“You could have woke me up for that,” he snapped.

 

“Well, maybe I wanted some privacy—”

 

Sandor rounded on her, seething. His sudden stop almost caused her to run into him, and his hand gripped her arm to the point that it hurt. “You don’t get privacy anymore. They have killed your entire family. Do you _think_ they aren’t looking for you, too?”

 

Sansa opened and closed her mouth for what had to have been the hundredth time around him. She clutched his cloak tighter around her body, and she still managed to give him an icy stare with her chin held high. “Of course they’re looking for me, too,” she said with a tone equal in challenge, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a _bath_.”

 

That was it. He’d had it. Sandor bent over and scooped her up with one arm, hoisting her onto his shoulder. Sansa gasped as he lifted her, and then her fists were colliding with his back.

 

“Put me _down_ ,” she demanded, but he ignored her. She gave up the fight soon enough. She wasn’t stupid enough to continue yelling as they drew closer to the barn. He dropped her unceremoniously onto her feet once they were inside, ushering her up the ladder to their hiding place at the top. Sansa sat down and wrapped the cloak more tightly around her small frame, shivering from the cold and being wet.

 

Sandor passed her clothes to her. “Get dressed,” he told her, and he returned to his sleeping roll and put his back to her. He refused to turn around and look at her for any reason whatsoever. He wasn’t mad at her, though. Sandor was mad at himself, but she didn’t have to know that. He wasn’t telling her.

 

When she crawled over to where he lay, he felt her pull up the blankets and slide under them, pressing herself flush against his back. She was shivering like mad, shaking until her teeth chattered from the cold, and Sandor’s pity got the best of him. He wanted to ignore her tonight after what happened in the forest, but he couldn’t ignore her. Not when she was shaking like this.

 

He turned over, putting his arm around her and pulling her close. “Come here, girl,” he rasped, and Sansa snuggled into his embrace as he cupped her head under his chin and rubbed his hand down her arm to get her blood flowing again. Within minutes, she was warm all over and her arm had snaked itself over his middle and clutched onto his side.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his chest, her voice muffled.

 

“It’s all right, little bird,” he murmured back, his voice softer than usual. It wasn’t her fault. He was the one being an ass.

 

“Sansa,” she suddenly said to him, and he was confused until she spoke again. “My name is Sansa.”

 

Sandor couldn’t help it. His chest shook with silent laughter. She wanted him to call her by her name? He hadn’t heard her call him his. “And what’s mine?” he asked, curious to hear her answer.

 

“The Hou—oh,” Sansa’s voice fell.

 

His chest shook harder, and he began to laugh, a low, raspy laugh. So much for first names. “So, are we the Hound and the little bird?” Sandor asked her, looking down at her in his arms. “Or do you want me to call you by your name?”

 

“My name,” she whispered quietly, like a lover, her fingers toying with his jerkin.

 

Sandor slowly ran his hand up her arm. “So, what’s mine?” he asked her softly, repeating the question one more time.

 

Sansa opened her mouth to speak, and she paused mid-breath. She was silent for some time as if she had to think about it before she did it, as if it changed things and broke the boundaries between them and recreated new ones—then came her voice as soft as a summer’s breeze.

 

“Sandor,” Sansa breathed out against his chest, and Sandor’s hand stilled its rubbing pattern against her arm. It was the first time she ever called him by his name before, and suddenly the walls between them became that much thinner and everything was ten times more personal than it had been before. Even lying here, holding her like this, held a completely different meaning now. Sandor’s hand resumed its pattern against her arm, rubbing up and down, almost as if nothing had happened to stop it in the first place.

 

“Go to sleep, girl,” Sandor told her softly, and Sansa closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.

 

“Okay,” she murmured.

 

Soon after the darkness took her, he allowed it to take him too.

 

They spent only two more days at the barn, making sure to keep out of sight. Sansa waited in hiding during the day as Sandor went out hunting and searching for other foods as well as supplies that they needed for a longer trip. He even ransacked the vacant house again now that he had time to explore it properly. They were short of a lot of things they needed, and Sansa understood when he told her, so she didn’t complain. He was glad for it.

 

In the middle of the third night, Sandor woke up to the sound of a deep moan in the silence of the barn. He didn’t move at first, looking over to make sure Sansa was still by his side. When she wasn’t, he sat up quickly. With panic in his blood, Sandor searched for her with his eyes roaming across the top floor. Another moan, this one louder, reverberated through the air, and it was distinctly a woman—but not Sansa.

 

Sandor found her at the ledge between the hay stacks. Sansa was lying on her stomach, hands curled over the edge, her head peeking out to get a view of what was below. Sandor looked over her, seeing the man and the woman fucking like wild animals at the bottom. The woman was laid out on her back, legs wide open, while the man rammed his cock home in her cunt. They were stark naked, a trail of clothes leading from the doors straight to them, scattered across the floor.

 

Sansa’s eyes were locked on the couple. She didn’t even notice him behind her. Sandor watched her watching them, turned on by the wrongness of it all, and then Sansa crawled forward on her elbows to get an even better view of the couple. He never would have thought the little bird had it in her, but there she was, eager as a puppy for more.

 

Sansa’s arm nearly knocked over the stacked hay roll, which would have fallen straight down and drawn attention to them, so Sandor reacted quickly. He grabbed her from behind by the mouth, his hand clamping down to drown out any cry she might have made, and pulled her back from the ledge as he lifted her. Sandor drew them both back into the shadows. Sansa struggled at first until she realized it was only him, and then she stilled in his arms.

 

Sandor didn’t say anything. The barn was so quiet except for the woman’s growing moans and cries that he would have been heard, so he sat down in silence, taking Sansa with him into his lap and sitting her on his leg. He kept his hand over Sansa’s mouth as gesture for her to keep quiet as well. She had to be silent, and so did he.

 

She was tense all over, taut as a bowstring, but she leaned into his embrace with her back against his chest and sat completely still. Her hands scrabbled for purchase, for something to hold onto and grip tight—and her fingers clutched onto his thighs, her nails digging in. Sandor’s cock responded to the touch, growing harder in his breeches. With the woman’s echoing noises of pleasure, the man’s groans, and Sansa’s chest heaving up and down underneath the arm he had snaked over her body to hold her mouth, Sandor was finding the situation far too arousing.

 

Her breathing became rapid and shallow, and Sansa shifted uncomfortably on his leg. He felt her face grow hot under his hand, and then she shifted again and slipped off of his leg and landed in the middle of his lap right on top of his stiff cock. Sandor closed his eyes, his hand tightening on her mouth, as he seized up behind her. Gods, it felt good, but this was wrong. This was all wrong.

 

Sansa made a small, soft sound in the back of her throat, splaying her fingers against his thighs. Her bottom moved, just barely, rubbing against his cock. He couldn’t stay in this position a moment longer, or he’d do something he would regret. Sandor moved quickly but quietly. He had her down against the boards within seconds, looming above her, her hair splayed out around her pretty face as she stared up at him in the moonlight. He brought his free hand to his lips to hold a finger there as he glared at her, and she nodded slowly. Sandor released his hand from her mouth, and Sansa’s breasts heaved beneath her gown as she stared at him with—was that expectation in her eyes?

 

She tilted her chin up, and he felt her hand on his arm. Sansa’s lips parted, her fingers gently grazing his arm. _No_ , Sandor thought, immediately shutting down. He pulled away from her, laying his body down beside her without a word.

 

His chest hurt with a sharp ache.

 

Sansa turned onto her side next to Sandor, putting her back to him. Eventually, the woman’s cries below grew louder before abruptly coming to an end. He heard laughter, the lovers’ distant talking, and then the creak of a door below as they left the barn. Sandor rose after that, pacing across the top floor and looking around to make sure they were gone and no more surprises lingered below. When he was satisfied, he returned to Sansa. He hesitated to touch her, but after a moment’s respite, he reached out for her arm. “Sansa,” he said.

 

She slowly looked up at him, still halfway curled into herself. “Yes?”

 

A noticeable air of trepidation had arisen between them. Sandor didn’t know what to make of it. He stared at her for a moment. “Come back to bed,” he finally said, returning to the sleeping roll.

 

It took Sansa a few minutes before she got up and returned to his side under the blankets. She kept her distance, not getting too close to him. Her whole body thrummed with tension. It wasn’t like her to keep her distance. Sansa was always the one invading his space, so it irritated him to have her suddenly act the opposite. Sandor didn’t like the feeling it gave him.

 

“What’s wrong?” he suddenly asked.

 

Sansa was startled. “What?”

 

“Don’t play dumb,” Sandor snapped, his irritation coming through in his voice. “What’s wrong with you?”

 

“I don’t know,” she said weakly. “I guess I’m uncomfortable—”

 

He snorted at that. _Right, like that’s true_ , Sandor thought. All of her wiggling and touching, and _she_ was the one uncomfortable. “Why were you staring, then?”

 

“I was _not_ ,” Sansa denied, offended by his accusation, even though he had caught her red-handed. “I heard noises—”

 

“Oh, you heard noises all right,” Sandor said, finally looking at her. “You knew what they were doing, same as me. I’m not the one who sneaked over to have a—”

 

Sansa pushed herself up on her elbow and slapped his arm. It was a light slap, and it didn’t shock him, but it made him quiet.  “You do _not_ talk to me that way,” she said, though her voice shook with unsteadiness. “I am Lady Sansa of House Stark. You are to show me some respect.”

 

They were bold words, but not bold words from a young girl. Sansa looked very much like a woman as she said them. Sandor eyed her in the dark, but he made no move to get up and get her back for her slap. The lady was putting him in his place, and that much he could accept from her. He lied there silent, and at last he turned his head and closed his eyes.

 

“Go to sleep, Sansa,” he told her. “We have been here too long already. We leave in the morning.” Sandor turned onto his side, his back to her, putting some distance between them tonight. It was for the best. Too many lines had been blurred between them lately, and he was losing his resolve.

 

Sandor was halfway asleep again when he heard Sansa crying. He opened his eyes, sighing softly with exasperation. Her shaky whimper filled his ears, and he wondered what brought this on. Sansa was trying to be quiet, but her bemoaning and ragged breaths were obvious. Sandor sat up. “What are you crying abou—” he began, but he paused in mid-word when he looked over at her.

 

Sansa scrambled to pull down her dress and cover herself, pressing her hands down above her privy parts to hide them from his sight if her dress could not do it. Her legs were arched in the air and exposed up to her milky white thighs, clenched together at the knee but wide open at her feet. Sandor stared her down, his eyes stopping on her legs. He knew what she had been doing.

 

Gods, she had been touching herself.

 

Sansa’s face flushed red, and she turned her head to look away from him. That banished all doubt. The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. “What were you doing, girl?” he asked, his voice coming out raspier than usual.

 

Sansa struggled with her answer. Her hands fidgeted, her arms twisted slightly. Her face remained turned away. She wouldn’t look at him. Sansa must have thought about lying, but figured there was no use in it. “Touching myself,” came her small, faraway voice in the dark as she kept her gaze pointedly away from him.

 

He didn’t expect her to answer so honestly.

 

Sandor swore in a hiss, looking away from her. He rubbed his face, his hand stilling on his mouth. He stared ahead of himself instead of at her, focusing on the wall. He couldn’t stop himself. Sandor knew he ought to watch his mouth, but it was running away from him. “And why were you doing that?” he asked, his voice low.

 

After a moment of silence, she whispered, “Because it felt good.”

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Sandor hissed again. He sat so still, refusing to look at her. One look and he was done for. One look and everything he had been fighting was going to win. Her family was gone, and she was all alone in the world. What was to stop him from claiming her as his own? Who else wanted her? Well, a lot of people wanted her, but not for the same reasons he did. He’d heard stories of wildlings from the Northmen in King’s Landing, stealing women and running away with them.

 

He could take her and run, and no one would know any better.

 

Sansa laid her hand on his knee, and Sandor jolted at the touch. It startled him, but still he refused to look at her. He didn’t pull away, though, nor did he get up to move away from her. He was in her hands whether he admitted it or not, and where they went from here all depended on her. Sansa curled her fingers around his, linking their fingers together, and glided her soft thumb over the rough skin of his hand. Sandor’s other fist clenched together tightly. Every glide of her thumb over his hand ebbed away at his resolve.

 

“Do you want to touch me?” Sansa whispered beside him. Sandor closed his eyes for a short time and reopened them, thinking it was all a dream and any moment he would wake to find that reality wasn’t nearly as sweet. He stared ahead and rubbed his chin on its good side, his fingers running over the stubble that grew there.

 

“Even if I wanted to, little bird,” he answered her quietly, “it doesn’t mean I should.” It was a weak answer, even he knew it. But it was the truth.

 

Carefully, Sansa took his hand in hers. He hoped she would change her mind, pull her hand away, and pretend none of this ever happened, but in the beams of shredded moonlight in a barn far away from the world they both knew, Sansa’s curiosity did not leave room for hesitation. With the slowest movements possible, she guided his hand towards her. Sansa placed it gently upon the bare skin of her upper thigh, skin so soft he’d never felt anything like it in his life. Skin no man had ever touched before, not like this.

 

She glided her fingers over his hand ever so softly, and in response, Sandor curled his fingers into her skin, gripping her thigh. Sansa moaned softly at the slight touch. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her chest heaving up and down from each deep breath she took, her breasts rising and falling. Sansa slowly spread her legs. For him, he realized. She had opened her legs for him.

 

Sandor dragged his fingers along her thigh. His hand slid down her silky skin until his fingers moved over her smallclothes, and Sansa whimpered aloud, her whole body shuddering at the contact. Fuck, if she wanted this, then he was going to give it to her. Gods be damned. Sandor climbed on top of her, all thoughts of restraint fled from his mind, and his hand pushed aside the small piece of cloth that kept her from him—and then he was there, his fingers sliding over the curly hair between her legs and lower until he touched her lips.

 

Sansa gasped beneath him, her hands grasping his shoulders. Sandor looked at her face, watching her, as he slid a single finger between her lips and dipped it into her wetness. Sansa’s eyelids fluttered, her look of ecstasy filling her whole face. He dipped his finger again, and she moaned, and he spread her slickness over her cunt until she was warm and wet and shivering. Sandor worked his hand against her, rubbing that little nub at the top of her cunt, and she shuddered and moaned beneath him, her mouth opening in a perfect ‘o’ just for him.

 

She wrapped her small but long legs over his hips, but Sandor kept a distance between them so as to not crush her with his weight. The arm he used to prop himself up he took and hooked under her left leg, lifting it higher until it rested in the crook of his arm. It spread her wider, giving him better access and a better angle. He placed his free hand back on the boards below, and Sansa bit into her bottom lip, panting and shaking as he tended to her needs with his other hand.

 

Sandor lowered his head to her neck, dragging his teeth along her collarbone. Sansa moaned and bent her head back, arching her neck for him. His tongue flicked against her sweet skin, and he pressed his ruined lips to her chest. When he lifted his head from her, Sandor stared into her eyes as he pushed a finger inside of her. Sansa stared back with her big blue eyes, shock and pleasure written across her face as she gasped and cried out at once, watching him. There was no innocence in her eyes, just lust. Her fingernails dug deep into his shoulders.

 

Very slowly, he slid his finger in and then out of her, drawing a low shudder from her body. He did it again, this time pushing in up to the knuckle as deep as he could go, feeling her resistance, her tightness. Sandor closed his eyes, imagining how heavenly it would feel to sink his cock into her. His cock throbbed at the thought, but he kept his breeches on for now. This was all about her. Sandor fucked her with his finger until Sansa closed her eyes, moaning freely like she hadn’t before. To hear those sounds out of her throat on account of him, it was too much.

 

Sandor hissed between his teeth, and he bent over her with his weight to use his hand to unlace the top of her gown. Opening it quickly, he pulled it down, letting her breasts spill free. Sansa gasped in surprise, the nipples of her teats growing hard against the air, and Sandor covered one hard nipple with his mouth and sucked on it. She gasped yet again, this time threading her fingers through his hair and gripping the back of his head. He lavished attention to both of her breasts, swirling his tongue around her nipples, sucking gently and nipping at her skin.

 

Soon enough she was bucking her hips against his hand, always trying to go deeper, but there was only so much he could give her with his hand. Sandor took his hand away from her, unlacing his breeches with fumbling fingers, and she made a small noise of protest in the back of her throat. Sandor pulled back from her breast to look down between their bodies as he freed himself, and it was only a moment later when he positioned himself between her legs. Willingly, Sansa opened them more for him.

 

He was shaking, he realized. How badly had he wanted this? Sandor guided his cock right to the center of her wetness and pushed, softly at first, but there was too much resistance. She was a maid, and she was tight enough around his finger, which was nowhere near the same size as his cock. Hoping she forgave him for it later, Sandor gripped the floorboard and, with one hard thrust, sunk his cock wholly inside of her. Her walls gripped him tight, sending sharp shocks of pleasure coursing through his veins and making him light-headed, but the pleasure didn’t last.

 

Sandor thought her cry of pain to be normal, something all maids must go through, but she was pushing weakly at his shoulders. She even hit him.

 

“No, get off of me,” Sansa told him, her voice small and scared, and she was shaking with sobs. Her whole body had gone rigid. When he looked down at her, there were tears falling from her eyes. Tears caused by him, hurting her. Sandor withdrew from her immediately, tucking himself in his breeches and backing away. All of a sudden, he was sick with himself. There was blood on his cock.

 

Sansa pulled her dress down over her legs and curled into a ball on the floor, crying and shaking all over her body. Sandor watched as her back wracked with sobs, and he saw her press her hands between her legs as if she was hurt there and maybe the pressure would help alleviate the pain. What had he done?

 

Gods, what had he done?

 

The urge to retch was strong, and Sandor had to put the back of his hand against his mouth to stop it from coming up. When he calmed himself, he pulled his hand away from his mouth.

 

“Sansa,” he rasped, wanting to come to her, to hold her, to apologize. She had to have known he didn’t mean to hurt her like that. He took one step forward. She had to have known . . .

 

“Go away,” she told him, her voice shaking. “Just go away.”

 

Sandor froze, his hands clenching into fists. He took one step back, and then another, and then another until his back collided with the wall. Sandor slid to the floor, watching her as she reached for the blanket left behind and wrapped it around her body.

 

He watched until she had fallen asleep, and all of the pain he felt turned into numbness inside of his chest. Sandor stood up and snatched all of his things off the floor. He descended the ladder and went out to Stranger, mounting his horse. He wasn’t thinking properly. He wasn’t entirely himself, but right now he didn’t care. Let her wake up without him there, and she’ll change her song. She’ll wish he was there right by her side.

 

Sandor rode off into the night with no intentions of coming back.


	3. From Inn to Narrow Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a remix of Dénouement. Same story as before. This time, it’s from Sandor’s POV. Sansa leaves with Sandor Clegane during the Battle of Blackwater, and everything that follows after. Follows an alternate ‘A Storm of Swords’ plot. Presented in three parts, spanning over the course of a few years. Blackwater AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While reading some of the comments on the original, some of you were really interested in seeing Sandor’s thoughts during this story. Well, guess what? Comments get you cookies, and I wrote more for you lovely ladies. Enjoy! <3
> 
> I hit a snag with this last installment, hence the wait, but here it is! Finished at last! :)

_iii._

 

When the morning light rose above him, Sandor awoke on the cold hard ground by himself in the middle of nowhere. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, and a sickness roiled his stomach from too much heavy wine. Rolling over on the ground, he retched up half of the alcohol he had drunk the night before. Stranger was grazing nearby, oblivious to his master’s discontent. It took the better part of an hour before Sandor could even stand, and then he had to mount Stranger, which was a task in and of itself.

 

Once he steadied himself on the horse, he took the reins and guided his courser as best as he could in his condition. Sandor was still half drunk, his vision fuzzy and the world swaying about him, but somehow he managed to find his way back to the barn. It was a conscious decision to return, though he couldn’t say what possessed him to do so. Sansa wanted nothing to do with him anymore, so he ought to save her the misery of his presence, but something drew him back. Maybe he had to hear it straight from her lips before he could do it, before he could leave her.

 

Sandor stumbled off of Stranger near the front of the barn. He staggered past the entrance to the inside, his eyes scanning the blurry walls, hay stacks, and stalls, and then he looked up at the top. He saw Sansa hurrying down the ladder, and Sandor strode forward when it looked like she might lose her balance. When Sansa reached the bottom, she turned around and ran right into him. Sansa gasped and pulled away, nearly tripping on her own two feet to escape him, until she looked up and saw his face and her look of panic turned into joy.

 

Sansa threw her arms around Sandor, burying her face against his chest.

 

He ought to feel good, he supposed, that she even bothered to hug him after last night, but he didn’t feel good about it. Sandor felt wretched, and so he didn’t hug her back. He kept his arms down at his sides, and when she pulled away to look at him, she wrinkled her nose at him. Sansa must have smelt the alcohol on him, he thought, and he watched through his blurry vision as the look on her face changed and she swallowed past a catch in her throat.

 

“You’re drunk,” Sansa said, which was obvious, and he scowled heavily at her. Sandor grabbed her arm and turned around, walking her out of the barn. From one of their discussions about her family within the last few weeks, Sandor remembered she had an aunt in the Eyrie. While he previously had ignored the possibility of taking her there because of the news that came out of the Vale about the mountain clans, he finally decided in that moment that he would bring her there, drop her off in safety, and leave all of this mess behind him. He would leave her with her aunt, and no one could say he didn’t do his damn job with the girl.

 

“We’re leaving,” Sandor told her brusquely, trying to sound rough on purpose. If she wanted to be mad at him, then he was going to give her a good reason for it.

 

“Where are we going?” Sansa asked, and she didn’t sound like she was mad at him, which made Sandor scowl even more. He lifted her onto Stranger before mounting the creature himself. He sat in front of her this time, taking the reins.

 

“I’m bringing you to your aunt in the Eyrie,” Sandor said. “She’ll know what to do with you.”

 

Sansa was quiet after that, which he was thankful for since it was a long ride from here to the edge of the Vale. Somewhere along the way, he managed to sober up some and the ride wasn’t as bad after that. They rode for hours until they reached an inn between the roads. Sandor was familiar with the place. It was called the Crossroads Inn. He dismounted Stranger and strapped up the beast, helping Sansa down from the horse.

 

“Stay by me,” Sandor said in a gruff voice, and Sansa obeyed him like her septas taught her in perfect silence. He strode into the inn with her behind him, and he walked right up to the bar and spoke with the innkeeper about getting through the Vale to the Eyrie.

 

“Won’t happen,” the innkeeper said. “The hill tribes run the countryside now. No one goes out that way anymore and comes back. They’ll kill you and steal the girl with you. Best not to go that way at all.”

 

Sandor said nothing to that. What was there to say? His new mission had been to bring her to her aunt, and for the briefest of moments, he thought he might actually get somewhere after leaving King’s Landing well over a year ago with Sansa Stark at his side. He had stolen her away in the night, promising her safe return to the North, to her family, but Winterfell was laid to waste and burned to the ground and her family was all slaughtered like cattle.

 

He ordered a drink because he didn’t know what else to do, and he drank himself into a stupor. Sansa remained at his side as quiet as ever, never making a peep. Sandor thought once or twice he ought to say something to her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he kept quiet and drank his wine. Sandor heard the innkeeper ask Sansa if she wanted anything, and she asked for water in her polite little chirruping voice. Sandor scowled and ignored her, drinking more wine until his vision was blurry again and his head was already pouding.

 

“Well, who’s this here?” a voice said from behind, and without having to turn around and look at the face, Sandor knew who that voice belonged to. It was one of his brother’s men, Polliver, and if Polliver was here, then that meant his little friend was with him, too.

 

“Fancy seeing you here, Clegane,” another man said. Ah, that was him. The torturer they called the Tickler, a nasty little bugger. Sandor should have cut his balls off years ago. Slowly, putting down his drink, Sandor turned around to look at them, and he saw the smiles on their faces. They had a green boy with them too, and he was probably nothing more than a rutting squire. He sure looked it. Sandor scowled in their direction.

 

“What are you rats doing out here?” he asked them, and the squire boy looked at Sansa. The corner of the boy’s mouth twitched in a smile as he gazed at her, and Sandor felt his blood boiling under the surface already. If they tried to lay a single hand on her, he’d kill them without a second thought, Gregor’s men or not.

 

“Look, he’s got a princess with him, Polliver,” the squire said, pointing at Sansa. “Pretty little red-haired thing. Say, she looks like that lost Stark girl, doesn’t she?”

 

“My, my, she does,” Polliver agreed with him, eyeing Sansa as well.

 

The Tickler was looking at her now, and he spoke next. “I hear the Queen has a reward out for her.” He cut his cold, dead eyes to Sandor. “And you.”

 

“Touch her, and you’re dead men,” Sandor warned them all, slowly standing up from his seat at the bar.

 

“Not if you’re dead first,” Polliver said.

 

Sandor gritted his teeth and drew his steel, and Sansa hurriedly backed away from him. Polliver and the Tickler pulled their swords, but the squire only had a knife on him. The poor bugger. He was a dead man already. Sandor might have been drunk, but even drunk he could fight better than most men. Polliver was talented with a blade, though, and Sandor knew he had to be careful with that one. His head swam, but he focused as hard as he could as they slowly crept forward—and then suddenly, they all attacked him at once.

 

Steel flashed on steel, and Sandor kicked into Polliver’s chest, sending him flying onto a table. Polliver was the one to worry about, and Sandor wanted to get him out the way for a moment so he could deal with the Tickler first. The squire held his knife and kept his distance while the Tickler charged at Sandor with his sword. They fought for a while alone, steel clashing against steel, until Polliver made a recovery and scrambled back up from the table, slicing Sandor’s leg with his blade. Sandor growled and swung at him viciously, the edge of his sword cracking against Polliver’s skull before the little shit could even stand up straight again.

 

Blood flew from Sandor’s blade as it came crashing down on the Tickler’s sword once more, and it was then in that moment that the squire with the knife charged at Sandor as well. Sansa must have panicked and thought quickly because she grabbed a jug from one of the tables and threw it at the little man with the knife. It hit him in the side and knocked him off course, giving Sandor time to cut the Tickler in half with his sword right through the chest. There was so much blood; the floor ran wet with it.

 

Once the squire saw both of his friends dead, he tried to scramble to his feet while his knife remained forgotten on the floor.

 

Sandor walked up to him slowly, the point of his bloodstained sword aiming down at the boy’s face. “Please, no, I’m just a squire,” he pleaded, but Sandor ran him through with his sword all the same, putting every ounce of his weight upon his sword as he sent it straight through the boy. Blood gushed from the wound and pooled into a messy puddle beneath his body, seeping away like slow running river, and the light left his eyes.

 

Lifting his sword out of the dead man’s body, Sandor stumbled and hit one of the tables. He was wounded; he felt it, and he was losing blood fast. On top of that, he was piss drunk. It wasn’t a good combination. It was a combination for death in most cases and for most men. Sandor closed his eyes. He wondered if this was the end of him at last, at a piss pot inn on the edge of a river at the end of the world.

 

Sansa ran quickly to his side, though, and grabbed a hold of his arm. She was too little to lift him up, but at least she was trying. Sandor thought it was funny, but he didn’t know why.

 

“Are you hurt?” Sansa asked him, fear in her precious voice.

 

“Just my leg, little bird,” he rasped, though when he tried to stand on his own, he stumbled again and his vision darkened for a moment. It wasn’t a good sign.

 

“Ser,” he heard Sansa call out to somebody, “please, do you have a room? He’s wounded.”

 

Sandor wasn’t entirely sure what happened from the bar in the inn to one of the rooms. He vaguely remembered them carrying him, or trying to help him walk, but then his back was on a bed and he was staring up blearily at a wooden ceiling somewhere above his head. His vision swam in and out, and he laid his head to the side on a soft pillow. Sandor hadn’t a pillow in ages. It felt like heaven, but if it was heaven then he wasn’t dying. The only place he’d go after death was one of the seven hells, burning black pits, and he wanted to laugh but it came out as nothing more than twitch on the corner of his ruined mouth.

 

“Do you have any needles, thread, and ointments?” Sansa asked somebody in the distance. Why did her voice sound so far away? “I can pay you. I have coin.” _My coin_ , Sandor thought, and he ground his teeth together. Bugger it all, she was stealing his money. Sandor wanted to resist it, but he couldn’t even lift his hands anymore. His whole body felt heavy and numb, unwilling to move.

 

“I’ll get them for you, miss,” said another voice. “Wait right here.”

 

Sandor felt Sansa poking around at his clothes, and he wanted to knock her hands away, but he didn’t have the strength. Her hands were on his chest, his arms, his stomach, and then they were on his sides as well. He felt her inspecting his side, and then she was pulling at the gash in his breeches where the sword had gotten him in the leg. It was a deep wound, bleeding the worst.

 

His consciousness faded for a time before it came back to him, and when it did, Sandor felt Sansa undoing his jerkin and pushing it aside. Her hands rolled up the hem of his tunic, and somewhere in his daze, he felt her hands against his bare skin. Sandor tilted his head towards her, trying to squint his eyes to see her in the faded light of the room, but she was a blurry dark spot beside the bed.

 

“What are you doing?” he asked her, his speech slurred.

 

“Helping you,” Sansa answered him, but her voice shook as she spoke. Sandor felt the cool air on his skin, and he closed his eyes. He was going to die, so why was she helping him? _Let me die_ , he thought. _I deserve it_. Sandor thought about his entire life up to this point. He had pissed it away, drinking, killing, and whoring. What good had he ever accomplished, what honor to his name? None, none at all.

 

Sandor snorted at her and rolled his head away. “What for?” he rasped.

 

Sansa didn’t answer him, though. She left the room to find wine, returned and poured it into a pot above the fireplace. As she struggled to light a fire, the innkeeper came back with the supplies. The man took over with lighting the fire, accepted her coin gratefully, and left them alone in the room.

 

Sansa took a rag to soak up the hot wine. When she used it to wash Sandor’s wounds, he gritted his teeth and tried not to cry out at the pain. His head swam, and the boiled wine burned his skin. When he felt the needle go in his skin the first time, it hurt, but eventually the pain dulled out and he barely felt it anymore. Before she was even finished, he had passed out. He had no more memory beyond that, only blackness.

 

When Sandor woke up to darkness, he tried to remember where he was at first. The place was a blur, his hangover fresh, and he squeezed his eyes shut at first to block out the pain. Eventually, he forced himself to get up. It was the inn, Sandor realized. He was still at the inn. Sandor looked down, checking his wounds. They had been cleaned and stitched up, and he wondered why. Why were they cleaned? Why were they stitched? He cast his gaze over the room, and when he saw Sansa lying asleep on the floor wrapped in a blanket, he remembered everything.

 

He had let her down. He had hurt her even, and she still managed to be the kind and compassionate little bird from King’s Landing, the one who gave him mercy instead of scorn. His eyes began to sting with tears, and he blamed it on the hangover, but in his heart he knew the real reason why. Carefully, Sandor rose from the bed and dressed himself, and when he was finished, he gently tapped the toe of his boot against her back. Sansa opened her eyes, rolling over to look.

 

“Come, girl,” Sandor told her, and he extended his hand to her. Sansa looked at his hand, but there was no hesitation in her eyes, only sleepiness, and then she reached out to take it. He helped her to her feet, but his gait was limped as he walked about the room to gather what things he knew were theirs and maybe a few things that weren’t.

 

“How are you feeling?” Sansa asked him, and she sounded worried over him. It was another stab in his poor, pitiful shell of a heart.

 

“Better,” Sandor said. “Thanks to you.” He grabbed their things, and then he took her by the arm. “We need to leave,” he told her, looking her in the eyes. Those were his brother’s men he killed, and if his brother’s men were nearby, then that meant Gregor might be as well. They had to leave as soon as possible.

 

Sansa wouldn’t move at first, pulling back from his grip. “I won’t go to the Eyrie,” she said firmly. “I will go anywhere but there.”

 

Sandor was still in the firelight. “There is nowhere else, girl.”

 

He had to take her somewhere. He couldn’t just leave her here like he left her in the barn. He never should have ridden out like that in the first place, wrathful and with a flagon of wine by his side. Sometimes he had no sense to him. He couldn’t just leave her, though. She needed her family. Some kind of family to take care of her, and he was going to bring her to them like he said he would on that fateful night so long ago. He was going to keep his promise, even if it killed him.

 

“I am not Sansa Stark,” she suddenly said in the quiet, her voice trembling. “I am just a girl, like you said, and I don’t want to go to the Eyrie. It’s no better a choice than Winterfell or Riverrun. I have no home anymore. I have no family.” Sansa took a deep breath, and her hand clutched his arm. “There must be other places to go. We can find a boat, and . . . ” Her voice trailed off.

 

Sandor turned in the dark to look at her. After all of this, she wanted to _stay_ with him? When she still had an aunt living, she wanted to take a boat with him, and what? Cross the sea? It was too much for Sandor to take in, so he said the only thing he knew to say. “We?” he rasped, repeating her word. “Who said anything about ‘we’?”

 

Quickly, Sansa pulled her arm out of his grasp. “What do you mean?”

 

He hurt her with that. He saw it in her eyes. Sandor didn’t know whether to be angry with her for wanting to stay with him or glad that she did not hate him, and he was torn between the two different reactions warring inside of him. “I can’t take care of you, girl,” Sandor finally said. “You well enough know that. You’d fare better in the hands of your aunt than me.”

 

Sansa looked away from his eyes. It embarrassed her, what he said, bringing on a flush borne out of some kind of humiliation, but whatever it was, there was no hate in her for him. “I know you better than I know my aunt,” she whispered.

 

“That doesn’t make me better,” he said.

 

“It does,” Sansa told him, meeting his gaze once more. “You listen to me.” Sansa began to shake her head. “My aunt will not.”

 

He didn’t know how long they stood there in the darkness with him trying to make a decision amongst the silence and the fear in his heart. When he finally made his decision, he took her by the arm at last and marched her out of the door of the inn and into the cold night air. They mounted Stranger, taking a path down the nearest river until it winded out to sea. He found them passage out to sea aboard a small vessel. It wasn’t as hard as it ought to be, Sandor thought to himself. In fact, it had been easier than any other decision he had made thus far.

 

Once they were aboard, Sandor watched as Sansa looked out behind her as the wind whipped through her hair. The land that they once knew drifted further and further away from them until the sea swallowed it whole, never to return it to them again for as long as they both lived.

 

 

*

 

 

“You should get up,” Sansa said cheerfully, pulling back the curtains as a wash of bright light flooded into the chamber.

 

Sandor groaned and turned his face into the pillow away from the light of the sun and her. He mumbled something into the pillow, something about hot pokers and buggering imps. Sandor had a strange dream the night before, and on top of that, his head was pounding from too much alcohol. Gods, he needed to stop drinking so much.

 

Sansa made her way from the window to his bed and crawled on it. “Come on,” she said, nudging at him with her hand. “Please, get up. They are having a festival today, and I want to go.”

 

Sandor made a rumbling sound deep in his chest and rolled over onto his back, bringing one of his big arms to his eyes to shield them from the light. “Why must you go to a festival?” he asked her, irritated, and somewhere through the bright light nearly blinding his vision, he thought he saw Sansa Stark smile at him. She smiled at lot these days, no longer as serious and grim as she had been all those years ago.

 

It had been five years since they crossed the Narrow Sea, and Sandor had treated her very much like the little lady she was the whole time. He never made another move to touch her, never showed any interest to do so, but he was still a grown man with desires and needs. He used to leave the house late at night every few months or so—because he didn’t need sex that often, he wasn’t a damn addict—and visited a local whorehouse to sate his urges, but he always paid a visit to the same whore. She was a redhead, but her hair was more orange than auburn, and it was curly instead of straight, but it was close enough for him that it didn’t matter as much. Sandor always came home again afterwards, and he always spent every second of his attention on Sansa.

 

As she grew older and filled out in all of the right places, Sandor found he only desired her more, but he pushed aside those desires and ignored them. Sansa didn’t want him in the same way, and he could live with that as long as he could take care of her. It would be all right, he told himself. Her presence and her smile were all that mattered to him. Then, a few months ago, when Sandor had made to leave the house late at night for his trip to the whorehouse, Sansa had appeared out of nowhere in the foyer and stopped him dead in his tracks.

 

“Where are you going?” she had asked him, innocently enough, but there was a tone in her voice that said she already knew the answer to that.

 

Sandor had been taken back by her sudden appearance, so he had responded the only way he knew how. “What are you doing up?” he had asked right back. “Go back to bed.”

 

“I . . . ” Sansa had begun, but the words were slow to come out of her mouth. “I was hoping maybe you would join me tonight like we used to do before we came here. When we traveled the wild together . . . ” She was smiling suddenly as if in remembrance, and Sandor had stared at her across the foyer, his shock dissolving into something else—realization, perhaps. A realization that maybe, just maybe, she wanted him back.

 

“You should go to bed,” he had repeated, but his voice hadn’t been as strong as it was before.

 

Sansa had then crossed the distance between them. There was a moment of hesitation, and then she had wrapped her arms around his middle, laying her head against his chest, and sighed gently. “Please?”

 

Sandor’s stiff posture had fallen soft against her. He couldn’t have said no to her. He wasn’t good at saying no anymore. He practically gave her anything she wanted. All she had to do was ask. Sandor had lifted his arms to wrap them around her. “Yes,” he had sighed above her.

 

Sansa had asked him to make a promise that night as she lay curled up against his side, and he had asked her what promise she expected him to make. She played with his tunic, her fingers making patterns against the white fabric. “That you will not visit the whorehouse again,” she had told him.

 

He had been surprised, but he hadn’t been angry. Sansa wouldn’t have asked such a thing of him unless there was reason for it, and in that moment he had suspected what the reason might be lingering under the surface of her request. “Why?” Sandor had simply asked her out loud, his hand gently rubbing back and forth on her shoulder.

 

“Because,” she had said softly, “I would rather you spent the time with me.”

 

Sandor’s hand had stilled its pattern on her shoulder, though briefly, as he took in the implication of her words. He had resumed it again a moment later. “Doing what?” he had rasped, his voice low.

 

“Whatever you like,” Sansa had whispered back, and every night they had spent together since then had been as innocent as the day she was born. Sandor would just lie with her, breathe in her scent, and fall asleep tangled in her limbs. Sometimes he had awoken against her back, hard in the morning, but they never talked about it and Sandor did not want to make a move on her that would upset her or make her uncomfortable, so he did nothing at all.

 

As Sandor lay on the bed with his arm thrown over his eyes, he felt someone crawl onto his lap and straddle his hips. Sandor instinctively reached out to grab the hips of the woman above him, his eyes still closed to the bright light. His hands slipped down to her thighs, and she ground her hips down on his. He groaned low in his throat. When Sandor opened his eyes and saw Sansa on top of him, straddling him, he suddenly pulled his hands away from her.

 

“What are you doing?” Sandor asked her, an edge to his voice because he was afraid. The only memory he had of Sansa and sex involved her crying and pushing him away, and he was too scared to touch her—frightened of the idea that she would cry if he did.

 

“What Ona told me to do,” Sansa answered him softly, and she leaned forward over him, her hair making a fiery curtain around their faces. Briefly in the back of his mind, he remembered Ona was one of Sansa’s friends. She drove her hips down again, and Sandor felt himself grow hard beneath her. “Do you like it?” she asked in a whisper, and Sansa leaned down to capture his lips in a kiss. His stillness over his shock lasted for only a moment. Of _course_ he liked it. Sandor growled low in his throat, grasping the back of her head with his hand, and kissed her hard in return.

 

When Sansa pulled away, she put her finger to his mouth. “Be gentle,” she murmured. Slowly, she lowered her lips to his chest and kissed him, keeping her eyes on him. Sandor didn’t know what to do. Between her taking control and giving him orders, he was lost. He was always the one in control in these situations, so he didn’t know what to do as he laid there with Sansa trailing soft kisses down his chest.

 

Sansa didn’t seem to mind. She took her time exploring his body. She ran her fingers against his skin, touching every corner of his chest with her hands. Her hands were cool to the touch, and she let them rove over his body as he lay beneath her. Each moment he grew harder, and Sansa rocked against him again. Sandor closed his eyes, his jaw tight. It felt so good, but he was afraid to move.

 

Her hands came down to his breeches, undoing the laces, and Sansa slid her hand in, wrapping her fingers around his cock. He lied as still as possible despite his whole body thrumming with pleasure from her touch. “Would you take me to the festival,” she asked, “if I take you somewhere first?”

 

“Take me where,” he ground out with an uneven rise and fall of his chest. Suddenly, he felt Sansa scooting down his body as her hand still worked on him. Sandor opened his eyes and looked down just as Sansa lowered her mouth to him, cautiously licking at the head and lifting her eyes to see his reaction. Sandor hissed, swore, and gripped the bed sheets with his hands. Sansa dragged her tongue along his length, and Sandor closed his eyes against the feel of her on his manhood.

 

She took him in her mouth then, closing her lips around his shaft and moving her mouth up and down. Sansa took her sweet time with him, and every sensation of her mouth, lips, and tongue unhinged him. She pulled away but returned just long enough to gently suck on the head of his manhood, eliciting another curse from his lips. After a short time, he felt her crawling back up his body until she was seated in his lap. Her hand gripped his hardness, gave it a few good strokes and squeezes, and then she leaned forward just slightly to give herself enough room to position him near the dampness between her legs.

 

The slightest touch of it made his body shudder beneath her, but her smallclothes were missing. He had never seen her take them off. “What are you doing?” Sandor asked yet again, even though he knew. It was hard to take it all in. It was happening so quickly. “Where are your . . . ”

 

“I took them off,” Sansa whispered, and there it was—his cockhead pressing at her opening, wet and ready for him, and Sandor groaned deeply as she rubbed his head against her entrance. Sansa’s own little moans were soft, her body shaking with small shocks of pleasure he brought her. Sandor’s hands gripped her hips again despite his protests, kneading her skin through the thin cloth of her sleeping shift. He wanted her. By the gods, he did.

 

When she sank down on him slowly, her body didn’t want to accept the intrusion. She was tighter than any woman he’d ever had, and some part of the pleasure almost felt like pain for him, too, but he liked it. Sandor was afraid he might not last long. Sansa pushed with her weight until he felt himself go in fully, and he gasped as she gasped, her hand splayed against his stomach as it pressed down on him. He was in all the way, and she was perfect. Everything about it was perfect.

 

Sansa sat completely still, and it seemed she was waiting for a moment when she felt comfortable to move. She rocked her hips a little, but she didn’t quite have a rhythm. Sandor noticed her uncertainty with this part, for he sat up to reach her, wrapped a hand around her head and kissed her to ease the discomfort. Sansa relaxed in his arms, her muscles relaxing around him, and Sandor pulled her down to the bed with him before rolling over to cover her with his body. He was above her now, and Sansa wrapped her long legs around him.

 

The first thrust drew out a broken moan from his throat, though Sansa’s face looked uncomfortable beneath him. Sandor was careful with her, and the second and third thrusts drew out pleasant whimpers from her mouth as her eyelids fluttered and her legs parted more for him. She was starting to like it. It was encouraging. He thrust again, and Sansa moaned beneath him, gripping the back of his neck with one hand as her other gripped his side. Sandor was slow at first, but eventually one thrust in particular drew out a strangled cry from her throat, and he couldn’t resist it any longer. Sandor descended on her neck with his mouth, biting her and kissing her, and fucked her harder until Sansa was begging and pleading and digging her nails into his back.

 

He came inside of her, forgetting to pull out. Sandor almost collapsed atop her with the aftershocks of his climax wracking each nerve, but he managed to roll off of her before his arms gave way beneath him. He lied beside her, breathing heavily. Sansa did the same beside him, but then she rolled over onto her side and curled into him, placing her hand on his chest.

 

“Will you take me?” she asked softly, making little circles on his skin with her finger.

 

Sandor blinked, trying to register her words. “Take you where?” he asked, still out of breath. He had no idea what she was talking about.

 

“To the festival, of course,” Sansa said, laughing somewhat.

 

“Oh,” Sandor said. “Right.” She did mention a festival, didn’t she? Gods, where was his mind? He couldn’t think straight.

 

“It’s going to be a big one, they’ve said. The streets will be filled from corner to corner of the whole city. They’ll have mummers and cakes and dances . . . ”

 

“Yes, I’ll take you,” Sandor answered her. Of course, he would.

 

Sansa hugged him, and then she was up from the bed in a heartbeat. She hurried to the door, where she paused long enough to look back to see the startled look on Sandor’s face, and she grinned at him. “Well, we don’t have all day,” she said, chiding the look on his face. “We have to get ready now if we’re going to go!”

 

The streets below were already filled by the time they left the small villa, and Sansa held onto Sandor’s hand in the crowd so they would not be separated. All of the people were dressed elaborately in various colors. It looked like a rainbow everywhere he looked, and while Sandor was not particularly fond of it, Sansa loved every moment of it.

 

Somehow in the middle of crowd, Sansa let go of Sandor’s hand and he lost her. Immediately, his thought was to panic. He pushed through the crowd of bodies, looking in every direction for her, but he couldn’t see her anywhere. Sandor was taller than most of the people, though, so he looked over the crowd and tried to see further ahead—it was then that he spotted a puppet show and an auburn head of hair.

 

Sandor shoved through the crowd to get to her. When he reached the mummer’s puppet show, there was a shorter man than him, round around the middle, wearing a hooded cowl that had Sansa by the shoulder. Sandor saw Sansa’s eyes rove over people around her without turning her head away from the strange man. “I . . . I have not,” she stammered. “Please, if you will let me go—”

 

“What is this?” Sandor growled, and Sansa looked over at him suddenly, her eyes lighting up with joy. She separated herself from the stranger’s grip and hurried to Sandor’s side, wrapping both arms around his middle like she was scared of the other man. It made Sandor angry. His arm came around Sansa’s shoulders, his other hand going to his sword hilt.

 

The stranger looked at Sandor and then to her. The man had a close-shaven beard and goatee, and he was familiar and yet unfamiliar to Sandor. A look of surprise bloomed over the stranger’s face. “Nothing,” he quickly said. “It was only a misunderstanding. My apologies. I will be going now.” He turned around and vanished into the crowd like he was never there in the first place. Sansa’s grasp on Sandor was tight.

 

“Let’s go home,” Sansa said quietly, and Sandor could tell she had had enough of the festival.

 

When they returned to the villa, all was quiet. Even the noise from the streets seemed to be nothing more than a faint echo, and Sandor walked to his room as Sansa headed for the washroom. He figured she wanted a bath, and he wasn’t going to bother her. As he entered his room, a figure tackled him. Sandor collided with the dresser, both of them knocking it over onto the floor with a loud crash. He shoved at his assailant, throwing the person clean over a chair in the middle of the floor. Sandor drew his sword from its scabbard with a shrill sound of metal answering the silence.

 

The figure rolled and scrambled upward, darting to the other side of the bed with a knife drawn. It was just a little girl. Sandor’s eyes went wide as she perched there on the edge of his bed, staring him down with those dead but gleaming eyes, and that was when Sansa burst into the room. Sandor almost made a move to dart in front of Sansa to protect her, but Sansa cried out, “No!” Sandor felt every muscle in his body freeze as the shadowy figure turned to look at her.

 

The girl watched Sansa slowly, creeping a little out of the dimness. Her eyes were two points of light, glowing grey. Her face was gaunt and stark, a grim face for a young girl. She was dressed in mottled browns with ragged dark hair. There was something familiar about her, but Sandor couldn’t say what.

 

The silence seemed to stretch on, and then the girl whispered, “Sansa?”

 

Sansa slowly walked forward, though every thought in Sandor’s head screamed against it. “Do I know you?” Sansa ventured in a careful voice.

 

“Not anymore,” the girl said. “I have no name now. And he—” She pointed her blade at Sandor. “—He must die.”

 

Sandor gripped his sword hilt tighter in his hand. _Let her try_ , he thought, _and I’ll saw her in half_.

 

“ _No_ ,” Sansa said firmly. “Nobody is dying. Please, tell me, what was your name?” The young girl lifted her chin, her grey eyes on Sansa. Then something dawned on Sansa. “Arya,” she breathed.

 

Sandor froze at that, looking between the two of them.

 

“You remember,” the other girl whispered.

 

“Yes,” Sansa said. “I remember.” Her voice wavered, though, and she seemed more afraid of this knowledge than comforted. “Please, do not harm him. Leave us be and go. He is a different person now, and he won’t harm anyone ever again unless they try to harm me first. You must believe me, Arya. You must forgive, please. For my sake.”

 

Arya looked between the two of them. It seemed a long moment passed before the dagger in her hands disappeared, and she crept away from the bed towards the window. Without a word, Arya climbed the sill and disappeared beyond it, never making a single sound.

 

Sandor set his lips in a firm line, sheathing his sword. “She will come back,” he ground out.

 

“Maybe,” Sansa agreed in a quiet voice. “But maybe it will be for better reasons next time.”

 

“Don’t count on it,” Sandor said, the ruined corner of his mouth twitching.

 

A year passed, and Sandor stood by the door of their room as he watched Sansa sitting by the window, holding their newborn son in her arms and singing softly under the night sky. The child had dark hair like him, but the Tully blue eyes of his mother. When Sansa looked up beyond the window, she seemed to see something in the distance. Sandor crept closer into the room, trying his hardest to be silent.

 

He saw a figure crouched on a rooftop nearby. Sandor recognized the figure, and so did Sansa. Sansa lifted her voice higher as she sang, and it carried out into the night. Sandor looked down, seeing their baby fall asleep in Sansa’s arms, and her melodious voice reached out to the figure on the rooftop. When Sandor looked up again, he saw the girl leap down from the shingles, her shadow vanishing into the night.

 

“That was your sister,” Sandor murmured, and Sansa looked up, startled to see him there. She smiled warmly at him, though.

 

“Yes,” Sansa whispered. “That was her.”

 

“Why do you think she came back?”

 

Sansa had to think about it for a moment, and she looked down at their sleeping son as she rocked him in her arms. “I think she came back to see if we made it,” she said softly.

 

Sandor crossed the short distance between them, coming to stand beside her. He put his hand on Sansa’s shoulder and gently squeezed it. “And did we?” he asked her. She smiled without looking back up at Sandor, but her fingers brushed over the boy’s forehead in his sleep.

 

“Yes,” Sansa answered him. “Yes, we have.”


End file.
